Yah, this is basically what the StackOverflow fellow suggested, and it looked like something I'd really enjoy doing. Except in this situation, where I may have to do a hundred of these alternate patterns so it'd be a lot easier, albeit uglier, to keep just a list of patterns at the top of the script and toggle the one I want. They're only one line each, while the subs-pile could get huge and unreadable. We're not very concerned with best practices here since this is a one-time torture; no maintainer worries.

Anyway, it may be as you say, and impractical for other reasons after all, but it's gotten me interested in this basic question of whether the trick is possible at all. If it's true that for variable-length lines a single comparison can catch all fields but not validate, or can validate but not catch all fields, that's an interesting fundamental point.

In reply to Re^2: validate variable-length lines in one regex? by uhClem
in thread validate variable-length lines in one regex? by uhClem

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